On Resources

I’m not overly fond of writing resources. Not the kind of resources that help with your grammar, or structure, or certain character developments, or certain real life occurrences, but the kind that tell you how to write genres, what works and what doesn’t, what makes a good book.

To me those types of ‘resources’ are pointless. In writing, much like any creative endeavor, you have to think outside the box, and how can you do that if you’re trying to conform to the box? Some of the best writers have winged it. They’ve taken a genre and they’ve reinvented it. They’ve taken things that worked and done the complete opposite. In my opinion you can’t tell someone how to write a story, only how to write it so it’s best understood. Everything else from there is their choice.

I don’t want to be told how to lead my story so that it fits what is expected of it. I want to freely play along the pages and learn what works for me and my story, not what’s worked for other stories.

Obviously guidelines are helpful to some, but for me writing is about just creating what you feel and hoping others love it as much as you do. It may never be published, it may never be seen by many as great, but it’s yours to love and create and design how you see fit. Screw the typical formula of a genre, find your own formula, create a new formula that suits you.

Writing is not about reading a ton of “how to’s”, it’s about having an idea and fleshing it out. It’s about creating your world so others can enjoy it with you. It’s about reinventing the conventional and making it your own.